Aftermath: Ghost Crisis
by pandamanda09
Summary: Post-PP. It's been two years since the Disasteroid incident and Danny's life has taken a turn for the worse. A ghost is after him and his entire family for revenge, but nobody other than a few privileged ghosts know of the threat's identity.
1. Part I: Introduction

**Aftermath: Ghost Crisis  
**A Danny Phantom Story

* * *

Part One: Facing Judgment  
- Introduction -

* * *

_Amity Park, April 2007_  
It was mid-April and three years had passed since the portal accident, changing the life of the Fenton's youngest son, Daniel. Two years, to the near day, had passed since the Disasteroid incident that almost destroyed the Earth and young Danny's reveal. Regardless of all that had happened a couple years prior, Danny Phantom still remains the local hero in the small, ghost-infested town of Amity Park.

Danny, now seventeen, was currently nearing the end of his junior year at Casper High school. He had gained a popular reputation amongst the student body and the faculty. No one spent their lunch hour wailing on him in the hallway. Girls swooned over him; guys wanted to be him.

His home life had gotten significantly better. No more of his parents' inventions mistook him as a ghost; his DNA had made him the only exception to the machinery. His parents did their best to aid him whenever necessary in battle, although they mostly observed, only interfering if a ghost became too much for their son to handle. His sister, Jazz, the college sophomore, had retired her position on the team to focus more on her academics as a psychology major and paranormal studies minor.

Outside of his home and whenever he wasn't fighting spectral entities, Danny spent his free time goofing around with his best friend, Tucker, and girlfriend, Sam. The trio refused to let the new "couple" status between Danny and Sam interfere with the group's relationship.

However perfect his life appeared, Danny had slowly slipped into a depression. Nobody knew of this; he kept everything a well-hidden secret. It had been months since he was a joyous, upbeat person. The whole emotional down entirely blamed on the constant ghost attacks, although one attack stuck out from the rest.

For the most part, none of the injuries the hybrid received in battle were fatal.

* * *

_Danny Phantom © Butch Hartman._  
_Story and all original characters belong to me._


	2. Part I: Chapter 01

**Aftermath: Ghost Crisis**  
A Danny Phantom Story

* * *

Part One: Facing Judgment  
- Chapter One -

* * *

_Town Park, Tuesday 12:58 AM_  
Danny Phantom angrily glared down at his ghostly foe holding a green ecto-blast in his right hand. The seventeen-year-old hybrid clenched his teeth together, trying with every fiber of his body to ignore the pain in his left forearm from the last direct-contact hit he'd received. Skulker, an old enemy of his since the early months of his condition, floated below him grinning. His red eyes staring at the wound he had given the teen, admiring his handiwork.

Green blood seeped from the mid-sized gash, staining his black suit. The sleeve was torn, revealing the injury to the cold, April air. Being half-human, the cold temperature of the air stung, causing more pain to his arm than was necessary. Danny found it more difficult to concentrate on his enemy and forgo all instinct to try saving himself. If he could get Skulker into the thermos, he wouldn't have to prolong the healing process.

He didn't need another scar to add to all the others he had gotten in the last few months. Glancing down to the park, he noticed Sam and Tucker watching intently, each holding a Fenton weapon. Under Danny's direction, Tucker wasn't allowed to handle anything other than the Fenton Thermos. The news upset the African American teen, but the half-ghost didn't want a Techno Geek running around with a bazooka.

Returning his attention to Skulker, the ghost boy extinguished his ecto-blast but continued to hold his ground. "You can't beat me, Skulker; sooner or later we'll get you in the thermos and this will end."

"What makes you think this won't be the first time you fail, Ghost Child?"

Danny puffed out his chest. "Good _always_ prevails over evil."

A low chuckle escaped from the ghost's throat. "So optimistic, Phantom; you're positivity will be the end of you, your friends, and your home."

"You know, it's usually the other way around, Metal Head," the teen said amused, his gaze remaining on the ghost in front of him.

Skulker grinned. Three years and the teen hadn't changed much. There were so many things happening the hero had no clue. Amity Park's ghost boy was only concerned about the present, rarely looking to the future or learning from the past. It made his job so much easier.

"Don't be so sure about that…" the ghost trailed off, reaching over his shoulder for the newest addition to his arsenal of weapons. Once his hand was wrapped around a small, banana-sized metal boomerang, he faced his foe. Using his free hand, he shot a low-energy ecto-blast at the teen for pure distraction. Then, without missing a beat, he whipped open the boomerang and threw it in Danny's direction.

* * *

_Danny Phantom © Butch Hartman._  
_Story and all original characters belong to me._


	3. Part I: Chapter 02

**Aftermath: Ghost Crisis**  
A Danny Phantom Story

* * *

Part One: Facing Judgment  
- Chapter Two -

* * *

"He never saw it coming."

Sam Manson sat outside the emergency room, her legs crossed and nervously swinging, waiting to hear the news from the hospital staff regarding her boyfriend's recent injury. Tucker Foley continued to rock back and forth on the ground, repeating the same phrase over and over. Danny had not noticed the boomerang coming at him. That was the reason they were in the building in the first place.

Footsteps racing down the hall startled the two seventeen-year-olds as they looked down the long stretch, seeing the two people they didn't want to face at the moment: Mr. and Mrs. Fenton.

"What happened?" Maddie demanded an answer the second she reached the teens. Sam had called her earlier to explain that Danny had been severely injured in a ghost fight and they were on the way to the hospital. The conversation had been brief.

Sam glanced between the adults before muttering one word: "Skulker."

"He never saw it coming…" Tucker began his rocking again, continuing to repeat the same phrase he'd been repeating for the last hour. Both Maddie and Jack looked down at him, concerned.

"_What_ didn't he see coming?" Jack asked them, not really caring who answered as long as one of the teens explained what exactly had happened during the fight to put his son in the hospital at two-thirty in the morning.

"Excuse me, Mr. and Mrs. Fenton?" a young nurse approached them carrying a clipboard. She appeared to be in her late twenties, fresh out of medical school. Tucker stopped rocking to gaze at the young woman. Jack and Maddie turned their attention to the nurse. "You're Daniel's parents?"

Maddie nodded. "Yes. How is he?"

"Stable," she responded, glancing down at the clipboard. "According to the doctor, he'll survive, but his wounds nearly killed him. What was he doing out so late?"

The woman narrowed her brows. "You mean… You don't recognize him? What's your name?"

"Maria, ma'am, and no, I don't. Am I supposed to know who he is?"

"Nothing _abnormal_ has showed up in any of his tests?"

"All tests we've run haven't returned yet. But I'm not sure what you mean by abnormal, Mrs. Fenton. He looks to me like a normal, average teenager. A rebellious one, if I might add," Maria said, pushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "Now I'm beginning to wonder what that boy has been doing to land him here."

Jack and Maddie both glanced back at Sam and Tucker. "Yeah, we've been wondering the same thing," Maddie spoke, her words meant for the two teens.

"Well," the nurse smiled, backing up slowly, "you're welcome to visit him now. He's awake. Perhaps you can weasel some information out of him before he goes back to sleep."

* * *

_Danny Phantom © Butch Hartman._  
_Story and all original characters belong to me._


	4. Part I: Chapter 03

**Aftermath: Ghost Crisis  
**A Danny Phantom Story

* * *

Part One: Facing Judgment  
- Chapter Three -

* * *

"_You can't escape the future, Daniel. Running will only make the situation worse."_

Danny shot up in the hospital bed, gasping for air. He clutched his chest terrified, wondering if he was dead or alive. It took him a few seconds before he realized he was still breathing.

_It was just… It was a dream, _he concluded, looking around the room he was in, taking in his surroundings. From what he could gather, it was a hospital room and he was entirely alone. There was nothing but complete darkness filling the room. The room was silent.

"How'd I get here?" he asked himself out loud, wondering how he could have been in the town park hours earlier and end up in a quiet hospital room. Skulker had nearly killed him that night. It wasn't the first time Danny had faced death, but there were certain ghosts he never thought would go so far as to permanently disable him.

Skulker was a ghost hunter and one of the few ghosts's who threatened to kill him. Danny really didn't think it was that serious of a threat coming from such a small blob. The boomerang, however, changed his mind on that one.

He never saw the weapon come at him. One second he was avoiding an ecto-blast and the next he felt something cut through his skin. The blade from the boomerang had sliced the right half of his lower abdomen. Everything after that moment in time was black.

"_You can't run, Daniel."_

"What?" he spun around in the bed, wondering who else was in the room with him. But the room quiet; he was alone. His ghost sense would have alerted him to any nearby spirits.

"_Do you really think you're alone?"_

Danny froze. He wasn't alone? But then who or what could be in the room with him?

"_You have so much to learn, Daniel. I look forward to finally meeting you in the distant future. I'm sure you're dying to know who and what I am. How I'm involved in your life."_

"Why not tell me now?"

"_And ruin the surprise? You're not ready to deal with us. Your kind hasn't dealt with us in over one thousand years…_

The room suddenly became pitch black and completely empty. Danny found himself standing on nothing, staring out into nothing. Only a single silhouette stood out in the darkness.

"_We will meet eventually, Daniel. Anticipate our return."_

Another silhouette appeared next to the original, this one slightly smaller in size. Danny wasn't sure what to think or do. Something wasn't right with these two _things_. It was obvious that they weren't human. And they weren't ghosts, or else his ghost sense would have sensed them.

They made him extremely uncomfortable.

* * *

_Danny Phantom © Butch Hartman._  
_Story and all original characters belong to me._


End file.
